People can experience both joy and sorrow in a span of a day.  We saw this on display on our television sets this week.  Neil Cavuto on the FOX network gave a moving report called “One Week Ago Today,” yesterday where he talked about how all the people who went to the concert in Las Vegas were preparing for it one week ago with excitement and happiness.   At the same time a man was plotting how best to get the perfect site from which to shoot his guns at people to kill them.  I think there was more than one shooter, but that’s another story.  One week ago today 59 people were alive and were with their friends and loved ones.  One week ago today, a very evil person was planning something horrific.   He was ordering room service, setting up his weapons, getting ready while thousands of people were just planning on having a fun weekend. One week ago.

That is how quickly joy can turn to sorrow.  I have experienced both emotions in the span of a day.  Complete joy and then shattering sorrow.   I write this because none of us are promised tomorrow.  None of us know when we leave our home whether we will come back. None of us know if the ones we love we see today, might not be with us in a blink of an eye. That is how tenuous our lives are.  Why we waste a second on anger and hatred is something I cannot explain.   We should love one another, give our loved ones a hug when we see them.  Call them on the phone and tell them you love them.  Life is way too short. I feel so sorry for those who lost friends and loved ones last weekend.  On Cavuto’s show he ran all the pictures of the people who were murdered and I stood there at my ironing board, tears running down my cheeks watching those lovely faces scroll by. Some so young.  Some with children.  Somebody’s mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle or other relationship.  None of them deserved what happened to them.  I pray they are all in heaven today.   I don’t know why God allows things like this to happen. I do know He doesn’t cause them.  Evil does.  Evil hearts that have no love for others.   And yet, we must pray for those who despitefully use us.  I can’t explain that one.

So, I am praying that nothing else bad happens for a long, long time. Our country has been hit with a lot of bad things lately.  So have other countries, but I have to deal with mine.    I want this blog to be full of happiness and joy, but I cannot ignore when my fellow citizens are hurting.   I have some fun things to write about, but for now, I pray we can all come together and unite as a nation and rid ourselves of all the hate that is happening all around us.  Blessings to you all and may God keep you in His hands. Bye.

Every day when I  sit down to eat, I thank God for my food, but I also thank Him for the chair upon which I sit, the roof over my head, the husband sitting beside me and all He has provided.

When I lay my head on my pillow at night, I thank God for that pillow, the bed in which I am sleeping, that all is peaceful in my world right now, the husband beside me and all He has provided. That right now my family is doing well and we have our health.

I have been thinking a lot lately about all I have to be thankful for as I watch the news every day.  So many people don’t have the luxuries I have. And yes, I call the comforts of home luxuries.   Today in Texas, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, Washington and California many people don’t have their beds to sleep in tonight or at least, not their own beds. Many have lost everything.  Some have lost loved ones.  Some have lost the pets they love.  I can’t imagine losing a family member or one of my pets in a flood or a fire.   I can’t imagine having to start all over again.   I realize that the United States is not the only country where people are suffering.  I just can’t wrap my brain around all the suffering that is going on around our world today so I am focusing on our problems right now.

So, I pray and ask God to make things better for people.  That His comfort will sustain them as they try to rebuild their lives. That they won’t lose faith in Him, because He is there in the people who are rescuing them, feeding them, providing shelter for them and trying to help the best way they can.  I sent some money to Samaritan’s Purse.  I know it was a drop in the bucket at what they need, but if thousands of us send some money, there would be lots of buckets full to help people in need.

To all those who are suffering right now I say, you are not alone.  We the people are thinking of you and want to help.  My prayers go out to all of you and I pray your lives will get back to normal as quickly as possible.

And on this day when we Americans are remembering one of the worst tragedies to ever happen on our soil on September 11, 2001, I pray for our country and it’s safety and peace.

To all who join me in prayer I say thank you.  Bye.

Had a perfectly wonderful weekend and I will tell you about it as soon as I get the pictures uploaded.   And I do have a ton of pictures.

I haven’t stopped for a breath since last Friday.  Usually when I go away for a few days, I have a day to unwind before going on, but not this week. The contractors come VERY early in the morning which means I have to be up to let them in.   There has been pounding and banging going on continuously and now a fan is running all day and all night to dry the new dry wall they put up.

Add to that I am painting all the woodwork for the bathroom so I have been working on that the past couple of days.  Sometimes when I hire someone to work on our house, I feel like I end up working almost as hard as they do!  I also have a barn door I am staining to replace a closet door.  It’s a big door and needs several coats of pre-stain, stain and polyurethane.

We also decided to move the chicks back with the hens this week which involved cleaning my shop because the dander and dust from the chicks was horrible.  Now they are still in their cage, but in the big coop to get the other chickens use to them.   I found my little lame chick, Miss Mary Foster, sitting on the roost the other day. I was so happy for her because with her bad leg, I never thought she would be able to roost with the other birds.  Go, Miss Mary Foster!

I still have not planted my flower pots even though I have had the flowers for two weeks.  Plus I have tomatoes and pumpkins to plant. I have rhubarb to cut to make rhubarb crunch.  It’s going to rain the next few days, so I won’t be doing much work outside.  So much to do and so little time.

We had a Bible conference this week at church and I got to hear a couple of the speakers.  Tonight, my neck, that I hurt a few weeks back, was really hurting so I laid down with a heating pad and fell asleep and David fell asleep in his Lazyboy and we missed church.   I felt bad about it, but I guess we both really needed the rest.

Next post there will be pictures, I promise and I will tell you about the fun weekend I had. Just a warning. It’s sort of political, so if you steer clear of politics, you may not want to read my next post.  Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.   But I had a great time.  My fairy godmother made the weekend possible.  I have her picture, too.

I hope it’s sunny where you are and have a wonderful day.  Bye.

Sadness and happiness live pretty closely, side by side.  Life can change in an instant.  Joy can turn to sorrow. And vice versa.  It happens every day to people.  Life is not promised and we may not see tomorrow here on earth. I have been thinking a lot about death lately only because I know so many people who have died in the last few months. When you get to be my age, you start to lose friends and family at a regular rate, it seems.  My church family has been hit pretty hard lately.  Today I just found out a friend’s husband has died.  I grieve for her although she had a pretty hard life with him at times.   She is a very strong woman, though, and will come out on the other side of this stronger than ever.

The weather has not helped my emotions. We are stuck in cloudy, gloomy weather right now.  Generally, the weather doesn’t bother me.  In fact, I look at bad weather as a good time to hunker down with a good book or go out into my shop and make something bright and pretty.  I have done both of those lately, but I still have felt a little melancholy.  I know this, too, shall pass, for I really am, for the most part, an optimistic, happy person who looks at life as one big adventure to be lived looking at everything as a miracle. Because it really is.  You reading this are a miracle. Is my life perfect?  Heck, no.  Am I sad sometimes. Of course.  But I do feel I was placed here for a purpose.  You were placed here on this earth for a purpose. Some of us find our purpose late in life while some children already know theirs.   I read a blog the other day about a family who had a little baby who was not well and died very shortly afterward and yet, that baby served a purpose. Thousands of people who read the blog were touched.  People who had lost babies themselves were touched.  It made me think. How am I touching people’s lives?   I get up every day and ask God, “Let me be a blessing to someone today.”   I don’t know if I accomplish it most days, but I try when I can.   I hope in some small way I am a blessing to those who read this blog.

I find my relationship with Jesus Christ has helped me immensely in this walk on earth. I met Him at a young age in my small church one night at a revival.  He’s been by my side since then. He was always at my side, I had just not acknowledged Him before.  He’s by your side right now. I have been reading some of my diaries from when I was a young girl and I see how my walk with Jesus has affected my life in so many ways.  I have found comfort in Him when times have been tough.  Joy when times have been happy.    I married a Christian man and that has made my life easier.   Do not be unevenly yoked, the Bible tells us. In other words, don’t marry someone who does not believe as you do or does not like how you believe.   I think that is true. At least it’s worked for David and me.

I didn’t mean to get all philosophical here or push my faith on anyone, it’s just who I am.   It’s what I have been thinking the last few days.   I have been blessed beyond measure. If I were to die tomorrow, I have lived a blest life.  I was blest to be brought up in a Christian home, although my daddy did not become a Christian until later in life.  I saw a transformation in him like nothing I had seen before when he accepted Christ as his savior.  I can vouch for the fact that Christ does change people.  My daddy stopped cursing and smoking cigarettes from that moment on and I never heard him say a curse word or see him smoke a cigarette ever again.  And Mother never had to beg him to go to church. He went gladly.

I was going to post a whole lot of pictures on here of things I have purchased at a new antique store we found, of my chicken quilt I wrote about in my last post, of the strange people populating my shop right now, but since this has become a “things on my mind” kind of blog, I will save them for another day.

I hope and pray you are having a wonderful day, that the sun is shining on you and that peace reigns wherever you live.  Bye.

Ah, a brand, spanking new year to celebrate.  Clean, bright and shiny with nothing to tarnish it for a short time.  Once the clock says twelve midnight, we say good-bye to 2016 and hello to 2017.  When I was a young girl, this year would have seemed like it would take  forever to get here.  I would be an old lady then(or older lady, anyway.)   There would be flying cars and robots doing all our work for us.  Well, it hasn’t turned out quite like that, but things sure have change a lot since I was a child.

When I was a child, we still had television antennas and three or four channels.  We had no indoor plumbing and we heated with wood and coal oil.   We did have electricity and telephones but the phones were connected to the wall and we could only take the phone as far as the cord would stretch.  No telephone conversations that the whole family could not hear.   My daddy drove a big old station wagon and we could sit clear in the back without seat belts and even lay down and take a nap.   I was raised on a farm where the animals were fed and cared for before my daddy would come in to eat.   We ate our meals around a table with conversations and no cellphones to interrupt. Now, it’s the other way around. Conversations interrupt people texting on their phones.  I don’t call that progress.  I call that sad.   Every meal was freshly prepared by my mother, who was the best cook in the county, if not the state. Never any takeout meals.  No McDonald’s or Wendys when I was growing up. Our little town did have a restaurant, but I don’t think our family ever ate in it.     We washed dishes by hand together, drying them with a towel and talking as we worked.  Until we had a bathroom installed, we washed from a wash basin in the kitchen.  My mother would cover all the windows with newspaper so no one could see us bathing.

I enjoyed growing up on my daddy’s farm.  I think I had one of the best childhoods anyone could wish for.  I spent hours in the barn playing.  I dreamed of having a horse and every Christmas I always thought I would get one.  I did get one, but my brother helped me buy him and I will be forever indebted to him for being such a good big brother for helping me get my horse.   I roamed the farm playing with all the animals, even the baby pigs and calves that were born in the Spring.  I rode my horse on the country roads and even into town.   I worked in our garden, fed the chickens, helped my mother clean the house.  We were always cleaning house, it seemed.   We washed clothes in a wringer washer and I loved putting the clothes through the wringer, being careful not to catch my fingers in it.  We hung our clothes out to dry. I still miss the scent of air dried clothes, fresh from the clothesline  My mother didn’t get a washer and dryer until after I got married and left home.  Mother did the washing every Monday and I helped do the ironing on Tuesdays.  Fridays we always had hamburgers for dinner which was a treat for me.  Saturday dinners were always fish.   Sunday dinners were almost always fried chicken or beef roast. Saturday night and Sunday night suppers we got to eat on a tray in front of the television and it was the only time I got to drink a coke.

I never thought I would grow up, grow old and not live on a farm.  I still have a farmer’s daughter’s blood running through my veins and I always will.  I loved when every new year came.  I always got a diary for Christmas and loved writing on the very first page about the very first day of the brand new year.  Some day I will share some of my diaries writings.  But not all of them!  Some things must remain private!

We don’t know what this new year will bring.   I know we will get a new family member through marriage.  Will I get a new puppy?  More chickens?  Will David and I journey someplace new?  Will we lose a loved one?   Will we keep our good health?   Will I gain a new friend?  Every day when I get up, I pray God will send me another friend.   I pray for all my friends.  Some have had a bad year and some have had good years. I have lost several friends in 2016.  We have seen several celebrities die. Ones I watched when I was a girl.  We don’t know what life will bring us in the coming year, but we can know one thing. We can have a relationship with the very One who gave us life and put our trust in Him.  My hope is in Jesus Christ.  Whatever befalls me, He has my back.  I am not alone in this walk through life.

So for all of you reading this, I pray for God’s blessings on you and that this year will bring you peace, joy and love.  Love being the greatest of these.

Happy New Year, friends.  Bye.

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a degree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed……….And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city, Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem;(because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.  KJV Luke 2:1-7

No room for them in the inn.  Has that ever happened to you?  It has happened to David and me.  One time when we were traveling, we stopped in a college town to find a motel.  We didn’t know that there was a major football game happening there between two rival teams and we could not find one motel with a room in that town.  We traveled to the next town.  Same thing. So we drove and stopped at motels and I would run in and ask, “Do you have a room?”  and  I was told several times, “No, sorry.”  So we had to drive a good distance from the first town we had stopped at to find a place to lay our heads that night.  I kind of understood how Joseph and Mary felt when they arrived in Bethlehem and they could not find a place to sleep. Plus, Mary was in her ninth month of pregnancy and was due any time.

Not a whole lot has been written about the innkeeper who told them they could stay in his stable.   Some think he was cruel.  Others say, “How dare he not give a room to the holy family?”  Well, he didn’t know at the time they were a holy family.  Only Mary and Joseph knew who the baby was that Mary was carrying.  God’s only Son.   I am sure they had kept it quiet ever since they found out Mary was pregnant and still a virgin.

In Bethlehem in those days, there weren’t motels and hotels like we have today.  Most inns were probably quite small and accommodations were probably crude, at best.  No white, fluffy towels.  No showers.  No bathrooms, probably.  No little bottles of lotion and shampoo.  So, all the inns were full to capacity because people had come to Bethlehem to be taxed.  The city’s inns were overflowing, kind of like when there is a Super Bowl happening in a city and you can’t find a motel room anywhere.

So, here is an innkeeper, looking at this young couple at his door. The girl(Mary was probably in her teens) was obviously pregnant and he had no more rooms to let.  What was he to do?  He had a stable( more like a cave) that he knew was dry and warm and had clean straw, so he gave them the choice of staying there and they took it.

If you have never been in a barn, you would not know that it can be a very cozy place.  When I was growing up. I played in my daddy’s big, red barn almost every day.  In the Summer it was cool.  In the Winter, it wasn’t exactly warm and toasty, but it was comfortable.  If there were cows, pigs and my horse in it, it was warmer because of their warm bodies heating it up.  I loved the smell of the barn.  I would lay in the straw in the barn loft and play with kittens that were born between the hay bales.  A stable is not the worst place you could find yourself.

So Mary and Joseph went to the stable and looked around and found a manger, from which the cattle ate, probably found some straw and padded it and awaited the birth of their son.  And when Jesus was born, they found some rags in the stable and wrapped him up in them and laid him in the manger.  Why would God allow His son to be born in a lowly place like a stable?  Prophets had foretold hundreds if not a thousand years before Jesus’ birth, that he would be born to a virgin, of humble estate.   There are several reasons why Jesus was born in the stable, but the main one was to show the world the humbleness of the man that would be.  That he came, not to conquer the world, but to save it.   It may have been God’s way of protecting  Jesus because the king of that country was looking for the Savior and king that was to be born.  He would never have thought of looking in a stable for a king.

Anyway, I believe the inn keeper was in God’s plan.  He provided the humble place for Jesus to be born.  He was not mean. He did the best he could.

In this glorious season celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and that is what Christmas is really all about, let us thank God for the wonderful blessing he gave to us that first Christmas day and say a thank you to the inn keeper who provided a safe, dry and warm place for the holy family to stay. May our hearts provide a place for Jesus in them, too.  Bye.